Please excuse the nature of the questions I am about to ask as they may be really basic...

How are you storing your coffee? Many things will affect your extraction time... you need to tweek your grind settings day by day. If it is really humid out for example it may cause a change. If your coffee is left in your hopper it is exposed to air and going stale for example.

Hi Josh.. so I'm not storing the beans any differently than I ever have but I see your point. I do leave some beans in one of my hoppers but I keep my second one empty and fill as needed. Have always stored my beans in mason jars.

It is not uncommon to have to change grind. Most common factor is the age of the coffee, particularly if it was fresh-roasted when you got it and you have been using the same batch for some time. Ambient humidity can also be a factor.

If you told us that you never have to change grind I would be more suspicious of either the coffee,the grinder, or your methods or standards.

If your extraction has suddenly jumped to too fast by several seconds, as you indicated, the most likely explanation is that you are getting channeling. The most common cause of the sudden appearance of channeling (keeping all other things the same) is the gradual aging of the beans. I suspect, but cannot prove, that frozen beans age faster after thawing than never-frozen beans.

As you know, channeling is the preferential movement of the infusion through paths of low resistance through, or around (edge channeling) the puck, therefore the infusion is completed in less time.

The cure is to user fresher beans, and to try the WDT (Google it). The only way to detect and monitor channeling is to use a naked portafilter and to compare your infusion stream with the example videos that you can find all over the web. Examining the puck for signs of channeling after the fact is beyond me and, except in gross cases, I suspect there is a significant learning curve involved.

I use a naked all the time and when I started I would see channeling from watching the pour but mostly I could not see it on the puck after the fact. Only rarely would I see holes on the edge of the puck. I still get fine misty sprites I am trying to work out.

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